It’s Jack Black As R.L. Stine In ‘Goosebumps’!!! #SDCC

Before Jack Black takes the San Diego Comic-Con stage Thursday, July 24 for Columbia Pictures‘ Goosebumps panel, EW has the first ever stills from the adaptation directed by Rob Letterman, who Black worked with on Shark Tale and Gulliver’s Travels.

The adaptation of the R.L. Stine books series follows a young boy who moves with his mother and sister to the small town of Greendale, Maryland. There, he meets veteran Young Adult horror author R. L. Stine, played by Jack Black. The infamous Slappy – a demonic ventriloquist’s dummy – comes into play and sets free the many many demons of Stine’s mind. Stine’s niece teams with the boy to put all the evil genies back in the bottle.

Black tells EW that he chose to do the movie because “It’s funny and scary—something that would be great to take my kids to.,” adding, “and something that would be fun to make.

“Kids like scary movies, but you can’t take them to what are the big scary movies now where Satan comes out and bites your genitals off,” he joking continues. “Those movies can actually leave you mentally scared; that’s not for kids. But kids still like to get a little thrill and a little danger, so you need projects like this.”